Fox & Friends prankster rips Fox News

9/17/12 4:35 PM EDT

Max Rice may have pulled a fast one on Fox News' Gretchen Carlson Monday morning, but he says there was an ounce of truth in the now infamous awkward interview -- he will be voting for Mitt Romney this fall.

Rice appeared on Fox & Friends this morning and was introduced by Gretchen Carlson as a recent college graduate who had voted for Pres. Barack Obama, but was now supporting Romney. Rice -- a 20-year old who couldn’t possibly have voted in 2008 -- said he got booked on the show after he was approached via text message by a friend of a friend active in a Tea Party group.

“It was 10 days ago, I get like a text from him. 'Do you know any college graduates who are upset with Obama or whatever and do they want to be on national television?' And I’m just like ‘F--- yeah, that’s me!’ even though I’m not a college graduate and I’m not unemployed, but I saw the national television part,” Rice told POLITICO.

Rice said he was particularly thrilled when he found out the network in question was Fox News -- and even more so when he was told he’d appear on Fox & Friends, a program he said “I especially hate.”

“I’ve always been very critical of Fox News, especially Rupert Murdoch,” he said. “I always find it fascinating that a guy from Australia makes money from xenophobia. It’s mindboggling and there’s absolutely no journalistic merit whatsoever. And this is like a clear example of that.”

Rice, who added that he transferred from UT-Austin and now attends Columbia College Chicago, said he told Fox that he was exactly what they were looking for -- a college graduate and former Obama voter who was now a hardcore Romney supporter.

But the Fox & Friends producer he was in contact with never vetted him. Rice said he wasn’t asked for proof that he graduated college or for his driver’s license, which would have proved that he could not have cast a vote in 2008.

“I said I was a huge fan of your show, which was probably my biggest lie,” Rice said. “They never called to ask me how old I was, they never called the University of Texas, they never asked to see my driver’s license because I’m 20 years old – how could I have possibly voted?”

There are several videos of Rice performing stand-up comedy on YouTube, but he claims this wasn’t a stunt to get his name out there.

“I’m more an aspiring writer than comedian,” he said. “That was just more to build self-confidence and develop a style, but I still haven’t given up on stand-up comedy, but that’s definitely not going to be my main career. This is something that fell into my lap. I mean, honestly, I will take the publicity though, but it fell into my lap.”

The chance to appear on Fox News and mock the network live was “too good of an opportunity” and a way for him to perform “a public service,” Rice told POLITICO.

“I feel if they get paid money to do that, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, millions of dollars a year, and they’re not held to the same journalistic standards that my sophomore brother is on a four-page paper -- if my brother pulled the crap that Fox pulled, he’d be expelled,” Rice said.

But it wasn’t all just a prank, he claimed. On the show, Rice told Carlson he would vote for Romney in November because he lost a basketball game to a friend, a statement that led Carlson to ask if he was taking the interview seriously. Apparently, that’s one thing that is true, Rice said.

“The basketball story is a true story. I lost a game to a huge Romney supporter and he would have voted for Obama," he said. "But I live in Illinois so it’s not really a tip for the election either way."